It doesn’t take a minefield
I took a lot of time thinking about what first post I would make on this sight for the year twenty ten. Should it be one filled with Happy Holidays / Happy New Years, comments on how you should write good goals that inspire and motivate, memories of times gone by and lessons learned the hard way? None of them seemed to really inspire me to the tone and level I hope to achieve with this site and those that take the time to read my thoughts.
While I will not promise posts on goals or lessons learned (after all this is a leadership site built to provide you advice from lessons I have learned). What I will provide to you this year is more actions you can take to achieve the leadership level that you want to reach. I want to start with a powerful visual example of leadership in action.
The following is from It Doesn’t Take a Hero written by U.S. Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf:
“I started through the minefield, one slow step at a time, staring at the ground, looking for telltale bumps or little prongs sticking up from the dirt. My knees were shaking so hard that each time I took a step, I had to grab my leg and steady it with both hands before I could take another…. It seemed like a thousand years before I reached the kid.”
How many times a day, week or month have you felt like this? Of course most of us are fortunate never to have been in the middle of a mind field or needing to go and rescue an injured co-worker. But I can tell you as a manager – I felt this way a lot. When we had a new VP take over the center, when I got a new manager or supervisor, when I was asked to do a task that was not familiar to me and stretched my abilities. How about when you meet a new person and you know they are expecting something from you and you just do not know what. It’s familiar to us all, the heart pounding, the nervous jitters in your stomach, the slightly shaky hands or worse the sweaty palms that seem really damp when someone wants to shake your hand.
All of these things are normal responses to experiences out of your comfort zone. What leaders do is learn to manage their reactions to situations like this. Most do it by knowing that they will request feedback both good and bad and implement changes. Understanding that they are not perfect and will work on things as they come up. Others just accept that they can only control themselves and thus need to keep focused on their goals and vision. Minefields can not be avoided in the work place. But you can build skills to help you turn a mind field into a field of opportunity.
The end result of Schwarzkopf taking on that mine field to reach his wounded soldier was that the man lived. But in addition to that he also earned respect from those who witnessed the action, from those in his unit, and most importantly from those that he had been commanded to lead. You see even in the military you can be required to command a unit but only those that get down in the trenches and put their lives on the line for their fellow soldier no matter what the rank can truly LEAD the unit. Schwarzkopf not only saved a man’s life, but he had earned the right to lead.
Take time today to earn your right to lead with your team.
So in this new year of twenty ten (2010), what would a leader do?
~ Get into the trenches with your troops. Understand their pains and their success – share them! Once they understand that you are in it with them, they will respect your view points.
~ Open yourself up to change. Push the envelope and try to take on those known minefields. Once you plot your way across you have succeeded in accomplishing your goal – growth and change!
~ Be open to feedback and request it as much as you can! Take to heart comments made and push forward to implement changes that will help you in other minefields in your future.
~ Have a vision of who you are and where you want to be. This is a new decade and as such you have time right now to plot the next ten years of your life – what will you make of it?
